Posts tagged with: Samuel Gregg

Samuel Gregg, Acton’s Director of Research, continues to promote his fine new book Tea Party Catholic: The Catholic Case for Limited Government, a Free Economy and Human Flourishing via radio interviews all across the country. Today, Sam spoke with Jan Mickelson on Des Moines, Iowa’s 50,000 watt WHO Radio. It was a fine conversation, with Mickelson calling the book “a spirited read,” well worth your time. To pick up a copy of your own, head over to the book’s website. Listen to the interview via the audio player below.

Acton Director of Research Samuel Gregg continues his radio rounds today with an interview in support of his new book, Tea Party Catholic, on WOCA 96.3FM in Ocala Florida. You can hear his discussion on AM Ocala Live! via the audio player below:

Acton’s Director of Research Samuel Gregg has been making the rounds on our nations airwaves over the last week promoting his excellent new book, Tea Party Catholic. Today, he joined host Jeff Crouere on Metaire, Louisiana’s WGSO 990 AM. You can listen to the interview via the audio player below:

Don’t miss Sam’s conversation this afternoon with Al Kresta on Kresta in the Afternoon. Al is one of the most thoughtful hosts on the air today; it’s sure to be a great conversation today during the five o’clock hour.

On Saturday, Tony Abbott, a member of the Liberal-National Coalition, was elected prime minister of Australia despite being considered “too religious, too conservative and too blunt” to win a national election. Turns out, he’s an admirer of the work of Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg (Australian born). In 2001, Abbott addressed the role of government in alleviating poverty and reducing unemployment in an issue of Policy Magazine, in a special feature titled, “Against the Prodigal State.” He begins:

The story of the rich young man who was told that perfection meant selling all he had and giving the proceeds to the poor has echoed through Western culture for 2000 years and still haunts debate over welfare policy. Anything that can be sold as ‘generosity’ always seems to hold the moral high ground—even when it turns out to be the kindness which kills. Well-meaning people tend to assume that virtue in individuals is also best practice for governments. Going further, others seem to think that government programmes can substitute for personal responsibilities in a kind of ‘outsourcing’ of moral action from the individual to a prodigal state. Under this ‘social gospel’, political activism becomes more important than visiting the sick or helping a neighbour in need.

He explains the distinction between “ordinary and heroic virtue and the difference between what can be required of people under the law and what might be urged of people in a higher cause.” He goes on:

As commentators such as Samuel Gregg and Michael Novak have pointed out, there is a sharp distinction between private virtue and public duty. The key problem with governments giving ‘their all’ to the poor is that what they have is not their own. The resources of government are collected from citizens, most of whom are far from rich. Governments need to be careful about being compassionate with other people’s money lest they demonstrate not civic virtue but moral vanity. Government giving has none of the ‘going without’ quality of personal charity because the politicians and officials who give are not giving what’s theirs.

Addressing the issues of unemployment, Abbott says,

the most significant compassion anyone can show for the unemployed is to provide work, boost encouragement to work and improve the employability of job seekers. Government programmes that don’t involve an element of self-help patronise the unemployed and can easily end up reinforcing a sense of failure and victimhood… Government agencies are much better at delivering an identical service to whole populations than meeting the specific needs of individual people.

Samuel Gregg address these themes in his latest book, Tea Party Catholic which is now available for pre-order.

With a bit of breathless excitement (“a progressive theological current“), there is news in Rome that Pope Francis is welcoming liberation theology back into the Vatican. On Sunday, Sept. 8, the Vatican announced a meeting between the pope and Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Mueller has co-authored a book with Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian who is considered the founder of liberation theology, and the two will present the book to Pope Francis.

Liberation theology came out of Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, emphasizing a preferential option for the poor, but with strong ties to Marxist ideals as well. In 1984, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) noted that liberation theology began with the premise that all other theologies were no longer sufficient, and a new “spiritual orientation” was needed. Further, Cardinal Ratzinger said of this theology,

The idea of a turning to the world, of responsibility for the world, frequently deteriorated into a naive belief in science which accepted the human sciences as a new gospel without wanting to see their limitations and endemic problems. Psychology, sociology and the marxist interpretation of history seemed to be scientifically established and hence to become unquestionable arbiters of Christian thought.

In a new article at Intercollegiate Review, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg looks at the current state of “idea conservatives” and their place in the broader context of American conservative thought encompassing an amazing diversity of ideological subspecies. But it is ideas and core principles, more than anything else, that informs conservatism and its various movements, despite the many fractures and fissures. Gregg makes a compelling case for rooting “conservatism’s long-term agenda” in the “defense and promotion of what we should unapologetically call Western civilization.” His article is the first contribution to ISI’s symposium, “Conservatism: What’s Wrong with it and How Can We Make it Right?” Excerpt from the Gregg article:

… as the French theologian Jean Daniélou S.J. once observed, there is no true civilization that is not also religious. In the case of Western civilization, that means Judaism and Christianity. The question of religious truth is something with which we must allow every person to wrestle in the depths of their conscience. But if conservatism involves upholding the heritage of the West against those who would tear it down (whether from without and within), then conservatives should follow the lead of European intellectuals such as Rémi Brague and Joseph Ratzinger and invest far more energy in elucidating Christianity’s pivotal role in the West’s development—including the often complicated ways in which it responded to, and continues to interact, with the movements associated with the various Enlightenments.

Such an enterprise goes beyond demonstrating Christianity’s contribution to institutional frameworks such as constitutional government. Conservatives must be more attentive to how Judaism and Christianity—or at least their orthodox versions—helped foster key ideas that underlie the distinctiveness of Western culture. These include: (more…)

Gregg has three competing stories to tell. First he wants to explain how a Catholic can responsibly defend limited government and the free market in accordance with Catholic teaching. This remains a crucial argument to make; since the 1980s, the welfare state has only expanded. As the financial and housing crises of 2008 show, many still look to government to control the economy, and bail out entire industries. Second, he wants to defend the substance of those teachings against both liberal Catholics and other sorts such as libertarians. Catholicism is not capitalism, and its defense of free-market exchanges and limited government is rooted in a certain view of the human person that is not the same as a secular liberal one. The Catholic view promotes human flourishing, but holds that flourishing must be consistent with the natural law and the ends of human life, such as the cultivation of virtue and the common good. Third, he wants to reconcile Catholicism specifically with the American form of republicanism. Gregg argues that the example of Catholics in America shows that the two are compatible, and that indeed the American experiment is consistent with the long tradition of Western liberty inaugurated by the Church.

Becoming Europe, the latest book from Acton’s Director of Research Samuel Gregg, has been reviewed byBooks & Culture: A Christian Review. Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, a research professor at Yale University’s Center for Faith & Culture, begins his review with a series of question, including, “Will entrepreneurship vanish in America, as it has, more or less, in Europe? And what will be the moral and political costs of what Gregg describes as ‘reduced freedoms’?”